


When Hell Freezes Over- A Hadestown AU

by TheRainbowWillow



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: F/M, Mentions of Death, Mourning, be forewarned:, somewhat obvious i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:29:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29446326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRainbowWillow/pseuds/TheRainbowWillow
Summary: Eurydice is sent back to Hadestown when Orpheus turns around. Orpheus’s lament of her death is painful, and not just for him. His song of love brought the world back into tune, so what happens when he sings of grief?
Relationships: Eurydice/Orpheus (Hadestown)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 20





	1. Doubt

Doubt. Every last step, he doubts. He doubts she is with him. He’d abandoned her, so she’d signed her life away. And could he blame her? Why wouldn’t she stay in Hadestown, where she’d always have a bed to fall into and a fire burning at the hearth?

Even if she wanted to, she could not leave. Hades had said so himself. She’d watch him abandon her all over again. He leaves alone. No footsteps, just the sound of his voice and the blooming bouquet of carnations in his hands. 

He stops. “Eurydice?” he calls. No answer. His shoulders sink. He turns. 

Her mouth moves. No sound escapes. He grabs her and holds on tight, but the world drags her away. She looks at him with sunken eyes, one last time, as she’s ripped out of his arms. 

He slams his guitar against a rock. The strings snap with a twang. Orpheus sinks to his knees. He wants to cry. Scream. Hit something. His throat aches from singing. Singing that damn song he never wants to hear again. The melody that lost him Eurydice. He hadn’t even heard her cry out to him. Just the foolish sound of his own voice. 

He leans against a rock. The surface is so close. Just inches out of reach. He doesn’t want to see it. It’s nothing without Eurydice. She was the world. And now... Orpheus closes his eyes. 

Hades will take him eventually. He’ll see her again, lost and hopeless, her eyes all cloudy. He isn’t sure he wants to find her. To see her. Gone.

...

He wakes. “And spill a drop for Orpheus,” someone sings, distantly. “Wherever he is now.” The bar, he realizes. He lays in his old bedroom. He rises unsteadily to his feet, draped in a thin nightgown. His guitar sits on his nightstand, painstakingly restrung by a hand not his own. He can’t stand to look at it. 

He stumbles down the stairs. Persephone sits at the bar, sipping a glass of wine. Orpheus slips behind the counter and takes the bottle. He tips his head back and finishes it in a single sip. Persephone looks up from her alcohol. “Orpheus. Go back to bed,” she orders, as if she’d known where he’d been all along.

He exhales, shakily, says nothing. He leans against the counter, his body aching from the walk. “Hermes’s orders. You’re hurt, Orpheus. The workers hurt you.”

“I don’t care.” His voice is raspy when he speaks. “I want her back.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t know. You aren’t sorry. You let him have her,” he accuses. He knows he’s wrong. It’s his fault, not Persephone’s. 

“I begged him to let her go.”

“You failed,” he snaps. 

She sighs. “I’m getting something to eat,” he announces. “Tell Hermes... no, don’t tell him anything.” 

He limps to the supply room, noting his leg is wrapped in bandages. Had he fallen? Been kicked? He can’t remember. No, he could if he tried. He doesn’t care. 

Orpheus searches the room, discovering an old table cloth, moth-eaten. Good enough. He opens a crate. Food to sell at the bar. It must’ve cost a fortune. He dumps it onto the cloth and ties it up by the corners. He stuffs a single pot and a box of matches into the bundle and rises to his feet, hauling it over his shoulder. His legs nearly buckle under the weight. 

Persephone doesn’t look up when he passes her in the bar. He leaves his sack at the door and hauls himself back upstairs for reasons unknown to him. He finds his guitar and habitually slings it over his back, pulls the blankets off his bed and marches back downstairs, as quietly as he can manage. Still, Persephone doesn’t move. He takes his bundle of supplies in his arms and shuts the front door behind him. 

For a moment, he regrets not leaving a note. Maybe something to remind Hermes that the blame does not fall on his shoulders. But the bar fades beyond the horizon behind him and he knows it’s too late now. He can’t bear to turn back.

He feels the chill on the air. Winter is coming and spring has hardly arrived. When the sun sets, the temperature drops further. His injured leg is sore from walking. He gathers some twigs, strikes a match, and takes a seat beside his meager fire. He draws out some crackers from his sack of food and eats a few. It’s not filling. He pulls his blankets around him and falls asleep, shivering beneath the stars. 

The morning is only colder. His leg aches too much to get far. He leans against a tree by noon and by some miracle draws out his guitar. He strums a cord, unfamiliar to his fingers. He doesn’t want a lullaby of love. A lament of his grief is easier to pluck out on the strings. In a low voice, he begins to sing, a wailing song of sorrow.


	2. Any Way the Wind Blows

Hermes arrives back at the entrance to his bar, huddled in a winter coat. He finds Persephone standing in the doorway, staring blankly at the snowy landscape. “Persephone?” he calls her name. The Goddess of Springtime turns at the sound of his voice. “I suspected you left early.”

She shakes her head. “This ain’t right,” she whispers.

He pushes past her and hurries to Orpheus’s room. He’d hated to be gone so long, but duty calls. He opens the door, gently, so as not to wake his son. He finds an unwelcome sight. The bed is stripped of its linens. “Orpheus?” he calls, uneasily. He receives no reply. “Persephone!” he shouts. “Where is he?”

Her footsteps pound up the stairs. She arrives in the doorway, breathless. “He’s not here?”

“No. His guitar’s gone. The bed...” he leans against the door frame, fearing the worst. “When did you last see him?”

“He came downstairs yesterday morning, despondent. Drank some wine. He wasn’t himself. Accused me of letting Eurydice die. I didn’t want to upset him, so I left him alone.”

“You didn’t hear him leave?” Hermes tries to keep his tone even.

“No, I was... tipsy.” Hermes rolls his eyes. “He was limping pretty badly,” she adds, hurriedly. “Can’t have gone far.”

Hermes doesn’t reply. He rushes down the stairs, frantically searching the bar for some clue of his son’s location. He turns the place inside out, finding only empty wine bottles. Finally, he checks the store room. He discovers the crates, overturned and emptied, confirming his fears. Orpheus had fled. 

Hermes begins the search immediately, Persephone in tow. The snow hides any sign of Orpheus’s footprints. Hermes calls the boy’s name through the streets. He knocks on doors and pleads for help, but most are quick to close in his face. It’s winter. The locals don’t need another challenge beyond survival. 

By the time the sun sets, it’s begun to snow again. The summertime is gone, replaced by this unnatural winter, almost four months too early. The cold only further hides any sign of Orpheus so Hermes returns to his bar. Persephone greets him with a warm bowl of soup. He’s hardly hungry, but he doesn’t refuse. “I’m going home,” she announces.

He sighs. “You’ll only make it worse.”

“I must speak to my husband. I would not be surprised if Hades plays some role in this.” Hermes reluctantly agrees. 

...

Orpheus wakes, damp and shivering. He’s slumped awkwardly against a tree, with snow blown into a drift around him. His fingertips sting with frostbite. He pulls himself to his feet, gasping in pain when he takes a step. The bandages around his leg are dirty and cold, but he has no replacements so he does not change them. 

He stumbles along, wandering aimlessly. For a moment, he considers attempting to walk to Hadestown once more, but he knows he won’t be allowed entry. And he refuses to sing. Not his old song. 

He limps a few miles before his legs give out. He collapses, half-conscious under a grove of ash trees. His supplies are low, he’s out of matches. He’d been out here alone for days. Snow begins to fall again and he has no shelter. 

He simply waits, slowly preparing for the world to let him die, freezing and miserable. He pictures Eurydice, deader than dead, just another shade among the millions. His eyes swirl with tears as he imagines her, the girl he’d so dearly loved. The girl he had lost by his own hand. Twice. 

When death doesn’t take him, he drags himself across the ground and falls back against a tree, providing slight shelter from the winds. He strums his guitar. The chords are more familiar now, nothing like his old song. They are filled with sorrow from the deepest parts of his being. He hums along without thinking, giving his regretful melody to the forest. He lets tears roll down his cheeks, melting the snow when they hit the ground. 

Hours tick by. He feels a little warmer, sheds his blankets, and keeps singing. Now, when his tears strike the ground, they freeze in an instant, hardly reaching the snow before they’re icy themselves. He forgets the ache in his fingers and the dull throb in his leg. All he hears is his song, all he sees is the white of the snow, blinding him. 

His food is gone and he has nothing to drink but melted ice. Still, he is unaware of the hunger gnawing at his stomach. He feels no pain but the grief that tears his heart to pieces. If the sun rises or sets, he is unaware. 

All that his song makes grow wilts and rots at the next note. Carnations unfurl, white as snow but already browning at his feet. The tune of the world is drown out by his sorrow.

...

The whistle hadn’t blown this morning to call the workers to their factory lines. Eurydice’s fellow workers mull around, unsure of what to do with their freedom. She reads the scrap of paper beside her bed, over and over: ‘My name is Eurydice, my lover is Orpheus.’ Two simple sentences. She isn’t sure whether they are truthful, nor can she remember who’d written them. Then again, she can’t remember much at all. 

She pulls her thin blankets tighter around her to ward of the cold. Cold? Another winter, she assumes. Not even death could keep her from the winds. The weather has caught up to her, even in Hadestown.

She steps out of bed just as another worker enters the barracks, sipping a steaming drink straight from the bottle. “Gimme that,” she says, attempting to grab it from the man’s hands. 

“No.” He pushes her away. “Find your own.”

“I said give it,” she snarls.

He rolls his eyes. She doesn’t hear his response, only notices the label on the bottle. Persephone’s speakeasy. She bolts out the door. If they’ve got something warm on tap, she’s determined to get it before the others beat her to it. To hell with the rest. This is Hadestown. Every man for himself. If it’s cold, it will get colder, winter always does.

She arrives at the bar, goosebumps up her arms. There’s a line out the door. She shoves her way to the front. The bartender has always been kind to her.

“Sorry!” someone shouts, “The bar’s dry!” Eurydice stares at the ground, dodging the angry glares of her fellow workers. She shivers. No blankets. No matches...

“Hey.” She looks up. The bartender. She can’t remember his name. “You want a drink?”

“Yes,” she whispers, expecting betrayal.

“Come on.” He hands her an armload of empty bottles and disappears down the street. She hurries after him, carefully cradling the glass she holds.

“Where are we going?” she pleads to know. “There’s a storm coming.”

“Somewhere the wind won’t find us!” he replies. Already, she feels the cold biting at her cheeks.

She watches him as he hurries through the streets. “Who are you?” she asks, over the gales.

He pauses for a second. “No matter, shade. You aren’t supposed to have a name. I won’t give you mine.”

“I’d forget anyway,” she mutters. 

He leads her down an embankment, where hundreds of workers huddle around some source of warmth. She nearly runs for it, but the bartender continues without sparing more than a glance. She follows. 

It isn’t long before she catches sight of the heat source. The River Phlegethon, a river of fire. The bartender sets down his bottles at the bank and dips them into the river, one by one. He lowers his hands in last, drinking the strange liquid from his palms. She runs to the bank and fill her own bottles. She almost chokes on the heat when she takes a sip, but it seems to wash away the cold. She fills the rest of her containers and drinks the first.

“Keep one,” the bartender says.

“It’s getting colder,” Eurydice notes.

“Don’t let the winter take you again,” he warns. He’s gone before she gets another word in.


	3. Medusa's Garden

Hermes marches again through the snow, deeper now. The winds are colder too. A looming sense of dread hangs over him. No mortal could survive for long out here, not even the son of a god. He wonders what he’s looking for... Orpheus or a grave.

The longer he walks, the lower the temperature seems to drop. It’s been days. Days, without so much as a hint of his lost son. And what he had found, some four days into the search, was only a scrap of cloth, frozen solid long before he’d found it. It was white, though, like the nightgown Orpheus had worn, so Hermes had told himself it was a sign that the boy had come this way. 

The sun is no longer visible beyond the blinding blizzard when Hermes finds a strange mound of snow in a clearing. He brushes away the drift and discovers a face staring up at him, frozen in shock. He stumbles backwards, horrified and fearing the worst. 

He forces himself to investigate further, crawling over to the bank. To his slight relief, finds that this poor soul is not his son. How long, he wonders, before Orpheus meets a similar fate? He rises to his feet, draping a blanket over the woman. Her shade, he hopes, will take solace in the warmth of the underground. 

He carries on with new urgency, the bitter cold stinging his face. The wind howls through the trees, rendering all other noise nearly inaudible. Over the gales, Hermes hears it. A single note, plucked on a guitar. He runs for the sound, as quickly as his divine feet can carry him. 

The notes draw nearer and nearer and the air only colder. His foot lands upon something beneath the snow, finally halting him. Glass. Red wine oozes from where the bottle has cracked, freezing almost instantly. 

The song is close now, undoubtedly sung by Orpheus. Hermes looks up. He stands in a glade. Or what’s left of a glade, anyway. The wind has whipped the branches off of every tree in sight. The pelting ice crystals have torn the bark to bits. 

But it isn’t the trees Hermes notices. Rather the people. Frozen like statues on their feet. He remembers the stories he used to tell his son. How Perseus had found Medusa, surrounded by the men she’d turned to stone with a single glance. 

He spots Orpheus next, his eyes closed, leaned against a tree in the center of the clearing. The air hums with his music, the lyrics nearly indistinguishable from the howling of the wind. Hermes calls out, loud and desperate, but his cries are whisked away by the gales. 

He stumbles as near to the boy as he can get. The song peaks with strange notes, as if its singer is frightened by his approach. Hermes shields his face behind his coat. He’s so close he can nearly touch his son, shivering in his torn nightgown, stained with blood. “Orpheus...” Hermes falls to his knees. The wind rips his coat off his shoulders. “Orpheus!” The boy doesn’t look up. He strums his guitar and the wind rushes faster. The world of pure white turns black.

Hermes wakes, slumped against the frozen figure of a woman, a knife in her hands. He drags himself away from his son, away from the sculpturesque forms of Orpheus’s would-be attackers. He pulls himself to his feet and sprints, faster with every step. Orpheus will not hear him, no matter how loud he calls. Hermes only prays that he’ll hear a different voice.

...

“Hades?” Persephone’s husband starts at the sound of her voice.

He blinks in disbelief. “You’re early. Too early. Seph, what’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” she snaps, stomping at the ice underfoot. “The winter’s reached all the way down here. What have you done?”

He recoils at the accusation. “Nothing.”

“You expect me to believe that my husband plays no role in this?”

“Why would I?” he growls. “Nonstop work. Triple the usual number of shades coming in and it’s only August.”

The train whistle blows, as if on cue. Hades takes his wife’s hand. “Look.” He guides her to the train station. “This is not what I want, Persephone. Thousands of shades, every hour.”

But rather than shades, Hermes stumbles out of the nearest train car. Persephone shakes off her husband’s grasp and hurries to his side. “You shouldn’t be here,” she tells him. He nearly collapses into her arms. “Hermes?”

“I found him,” he mutters.

“What is this?” Hades approaches the exhausted god carefully. 

“Orpheus. He’s doing this,” Hermes says.

“Hermes, are you sure? Gods, you’re freezing.”

“He couldn’t hear me. I tried to stop him. Persephone... I wasn’t the first to find him.” She drapes her coat over his shoulders. 

“Let’s go,” Hades orders. “Somewhere warm. We’ll discuss this once you are capable, Hermes.”

“No, we’ll discuss this now,” he argues.

“Let’s talk on the way,” Persephone compromises. 

Hades guides them to his office, lined wall to wall with space heaters. Persephone sets Hermes in a chair and bundles him in blankets. 

“You say this is the boy’s doing?” Hades inquires.

Hermes nods, seeing no way to lie. 

“And how did this happen?”

“He disappeared over a week ago,” Hermes explains. “I went looking for him. I... wasn’t the first to find him. He was hurt, I couldn’t see how badly. But his attackers... they never left,” he mutters, uneasily. “I don’t know how he did it, but I felt it too. The closer I went, the colder it got. I almost touched him before I passed out. If I’d been mortal, I doubt I would’ve woken. He froze them. His attackers, I mean... like statues. Or his song did.”

Hades sighs. “I’ll send Thanatos. Put a swift end to this.”

“Like hell you will,” Hermes snarls. “He’s still my son. I didn’t come here to ask you to assassinate him.”

“Then pose a better idea.”

“We get through to him,” Hermes offers.

Hades rolls his eyes. “You tried and this,” he gestures to Hermes’s shivering form. “Was his response. Any mortal would be dead before they reached him.”

“Not every mortal. I believe he spared me because he knows me,” Hermes says. “Send someone he knows. Someone he loves.”

“No.”

“Hades,” Persephone pleads, “He could be right.”

“He sings of his sorrow for her. His words are hard to comprehend, but I’m sure her death is what he laments,” Hermes adds.

“He lost her,” Hades reminds them. 

“You could fix this, husband,” Persephone says, firmly.

He narrows his eyes. “A deal, then. If she fails, they’re both mine.”


	4. The Wind is Changing

The whistle hasn’t blown for over a week now; Eurydice hasn’t worked. The temperatures have only dropped lower. Colder and colder until the rivers of the underworld had frozen over, all except the Phlegethon, where the shades spend all of their days conserving what little heat can be found at its banks.

Eurydice had joined the huddle as quickly as she could, staking down a spot as close to the river as possible. She’d brought with her everything she owned: the bottle given to her by the bartender, her thin bed sheets, and the scrap of paper with her name written on it.

She sits beside the fiery river, clutching her slip of paper. She knows its information is true now. The Lethe has frozen over, they say. It must have. Every day, she remembers a little more. First, her name, without reading it. His name. And losing him.

She wants to throw her shred of memory into the fire. Watch it burn. The paper’s edges are charred from past attempts, but she can’t bring herself to watch it turn to ash.

Of course he’d turned. She wishes she could blame him. Watch his name go up in flames. She wants to hate him. But would she have done anything differently? She had abandoned him, lost faith in his music. She’d broken her promises, he’d broken his. How could she accuse him of betrayal when she had left him first?

Why had she come here? Hadn’t she known the weather would never spare her, no matter where she ran? Her broken promises hadn’t brought her peace. The winds had caught up to her, even in death. For this, she has only herself to blame. He turned, but she gave him reason to distrust her.

A murmur goes up through the crowd: Persephone’s home. Early. Eurydice hears it. She does not remember how long it had been since the Queen of the Underworld had gone to the surface. It holds no meaning to Eurydice. Spring won’t be found down here, no matter how early Persephone arrives.

It’s the next rumor that catches her. “Hades is coming,” they say. She tightens her blankets around her shoulders, trains her eyes on the river. “He’s looking for someone.” She crumples her paper and tucks it into her pockets. “A girl. Eurydice.” Her hair stands on end. Her feet beg her to run. Flee, hide, pray she can stay out of sight. But there’s no dodging Hades’s watchful eye. 

Eurydice hears footsteps, slowly approaching her claim on the riverbank. She keeps her head down. If he spots her... “You.” She recognizes Hades’s gravelly voice. She feels a hand on her shoulder and doesn’t look up, forcing herself instead to hide her fear. 

“Get up.” She rises to her feet, her eyes trained on the ground. “Let’s go,” he growls.

Eurydice follows Hades as he leads her away from the river bank, finally gathering the courage to speak up as they enter the heart of Hadestown. “Where are you sending me?” she asks, keeping her voice non-confrontational to mask her fright. There are worse places in Hadestown than the factories, if rumors are to be trusted. 

“Home,” he responds, bitterly.

“Lord Hades, I reside in the east district,” she reminds him. “This is the wrong direction.”

He makes a sound of acknowledgement but does not change his course. Anxiously, Eurydice continues to let him guide her. For all of her months in Hadestown, the city may as well be new to her. Its perfect grid of streets is a labyrinth, impossible to navigate. Every building looks the same as the last, every street is a copy of the next. If she loses him, she may as well give up any hope of getting back to anywhere recognizable. 

Finally, the path ahead begins to look familiar. The railroad. A woman beckons to them to hurry. Hades hastens his pace. They arrive at the train station, where Eurydice had arrived so long ago. Persephone stands waiting. “Eurydice.” The Queen of the Underworld pulls her into a tight embrace. “It’s been too long.”

“How long?” Eurydice asks, monotone. It’s colder here on the railroad track. Much colder. 

Persephone frees Eurydice from her hug and looks the young woman up and down. “What’d he tell you, hon?” she asks, noticing Eurydice’s anxiety.

Eurydice shrugs. “He's taking me home. That’s all he said.” She doesn’t trust herself to say more, the lump in her throat only growing.

“Home,” Persephone repeats. “That’s it? Hades, don’t you think you could’ve been a little clearer?” She glares at her husband. “Home on the surface, Eurydice.”

She draws in a little breath. “Orpheus?”

Persephone sighs and chews at her lip. “Mm hm.”

“What is it?” she asks, alarmed. “Is he alright?”

“I’ll explain on the way. Hades, you’ll handle things down here?” He nods. Persephone steps onto the train, offering Eurydice a hand. “I’ll be back before you know it, lover,” she reminds her husband.

Eurydice takes a seat in the nearest booth, her legs trembling. “Persephone?”

“I’m sorry, hon. I would’ve explained more if I’d had the chance. I expected my husband to...” She snorts. “Okay, no, I didn’t.” Eurydice’s expression doesn’t change. Persephone gives something of a half laugh, to fill the silence. She goes on: “He loves you, that Orpheus. More than anything. I want you to know that. No matter what happens up there, he loves you.”

Eurydice swallows, forcing back her terror. “Why are you telling me this?”

“He misses you.”

Unable to contain herself any longer, she raises her voice. “Take me back. I don’t want to see him.” She carries on, unsure what spurs her outburst. “Winter is here. His song’s a failure.”

Persephone looks at her with an unreadable expression. 

“That song... it’s no failure.” It’s Hermes who speaks up from the far corner of the train car. 

“Not a failure?” Eurydice snaps, forgetting herself as a mortal, disposable to these eternal beings. One word to Hades and she’d face a punishment far worse than the factories. Still, she goes on, the slip of paper she’d long held on to quivering in her hand. “It’s colder than ever. Even Hadestown feels this winter. I don’t want to go back only to lose everything! He’s... he’s gone.” She crumples the paper in her hand and throws it to the ground.

Hermes retrieves it. “Do you know where you got this?” he inquires, gently. 

“I don’t care,” she snarls.

“Orpheus folded it up like a flower. Just some old newspaper. You threw the rest to the fire, a last bit of kindling for warmth. But you didn’t dare to burn it all.”

She wipes her eyes, under the guise of brushing away loose hairs. “I should have,” she mutters.

He shakes his head. “You wouldn’t. You won’t.” She knows it’s true, but she can’t bring herself to admit it. “He needs you, Eurydice.”

“What do you want?” she inquires, sharply.

“He laments losing you,” Hermes informs her. “You’ll see him again.”

“Under what terms?” Her voice blunt and devoid of emotion, expecting some new impossible fight. A goal she’ll never reach.

Hermes sighs. “That you end this winter.”

“Then we may as well turn around,” she says, the defeat apparent in her tone.

“No. Eurydice,” he tells her, “Orpheus is the cause of the cold." 

She almost laughs. “How? He’s a miserable poet, missing his lover. Nothing more. Orpheus is no god.”

“When he sings, the world sings with him. The world feels with him. Listen.”

She falls silent. Over the sound of the wheels on their icy tracks, she hears a melody on the wind, sorrowful and heart-wrenching. It catches her breath in her chest. She turns away, hiding her tears. 

“The world sees no light as long as he sings. Will you try to reach him?” He presses the slip of paper into her hands.

“Teach me the song,” she requests. “The old song.”

...

Orpheus has long since lost track of time. He cannot remember her name, the name of the one he sings this elegy for. She is faceless as she is torn from his arms again and again and again. 

The world, he finds, tires of his mourning. They had found him, women, worshipers of Dionysus. First, they had asked him to stop, drunken pleads. Whether or not he had heard them, no one could say. Finally, they had brought their blades upon him, maddened and miserable by his endless lament. 

He had hardly felt the sting of their knives at his flesh. And who were they to stop him? Orpheus had sung twice as loud. The winds heard him and, driven by the power of his melody, his attackers had been frozen solid.

Others had approached him, their faces blank before his unseeing eyes, blinded by the snow. They too had met cruel fates, fallen like flies, effortless. He had taken no pleasure in their deaths, nor despair in the harm he’d brought. 

Only once had he felt anything at all. Not remorse, not joy. Recognition, perhaps. In some far-off world, he’d known this man, divinity flowing in his blood. Orpheus had seen ichor stain the snow gold when he had thrown the man backwards, preventing his approach. Unlike the mortals he had warded off, this man had woken from his daze and he had fled. Once, Orpheus had wished he hadn’t gone. By now, however, he’s nearly forgotten the encounter. 

His song simply washes away all concept of memory or hunger or cold. All he knows is his faceless lover, torn away from him. He holds her now, pleading to keep her. With each failed attempt, she seems more featureless. She stays in his arms for shorter and shorter seconds before she fades to dust once more. 

He has no name to call to her before she’s gone. It is a nightmare and just as he wakes, he’s thrown back to relive it all over again. Yet he longs for her. He longs to see her again, just for a second. So he sings. As long as his melody rings in the air, he hopes she will be there. Another second. Another minute. Another day. He sees her. Again and again and again.


	5. Perseus

The train squeals to a halt. When she steps onto the platform, Eurydice recognizes her surroundings. Her home, before she’d been taken to Hadestown, had been this town, alongside the railroad track. The bar, she remembers, where she'd met Orpheus. She has his scrap of newspaper tucked deep into her pockets, unwilling to go on without it.

Hermes hands her a blanket. He’d taught her the song and with each note, she’d felt her memories return. She finds herself wondering now how her Orpheus, the sweet love of her life who wouldn’t hurt a fly, who hadn’t even fought back when the workers in Hadestown had attacked him, could cause such suffering.

The cold is harsh, stinging against her cheeks. Winter on the surface is crueler than the strange chill down below. The wind tugs at her blankets, threatening to rip them away. Orpheus’s voice can be heard on the gales, wailing through the trees. She looks to Hermes for instruction.

“I would give you shelter, Eurydice,” he says, “But I’m afraid there’s nowhere to find it.” 

She shrugs, pretending not to mind. “We should find him. I don’t need a roof over my head if he isn’t beside me.” 

Hermes nods. “It’s a long walk,” he warns her. “And...” his voice trails off.

“The sooner we leave, the sooner we’ll find him.” Eurydice begins to walk, a steady pace. Wrapped in blankets, the path is harder to traverse, but she’s grateful for the warmth. 

“Wait.” She turns at the sound of Hermes's voice. “Eurydice, it’s not him you’re going to find. Not really.”

She tilts her head slightly. “What?”

“It’s a graveyard out there,” he warns.

It dawns on her then. Those who found him before her had never left, he had told her as much on the train. “How long? How long before he freezes me too?” she asks, bluntly. He doesn’t meet her eyes, nor does he provide an answer. “Fine. Let’s go then,” she says. “If he kills me too, I suppose nothing changes.” Hermes nearly winces at this statement, but takes the lead regardless. Persephone follows behind him, Eurydice at her side.

“He loves you,” Persephone reminds her again. “Very much.”

She nods, forcing back her irritation. “I love him too,” she says. What does it matter, she wonders, if he’ll torture her all the same? What awaits her is a crueler fate than either of her last deaths. Failure or success, is one any easier than the other? “What happens?” she asks, “If I succeed, I mean.”

“I don’t know,” Hermes admits.

She can’t tell if this is the truth. She presses the question. “He’ll die, won’t he? A mortal in this weather, no shelter, no food.”

“I’ve struck a deal with Hades,” he explains. “He’ll sing all the same, living or dead, so you must not be separated from him.”

For a second, she’s almost relieved. Hopeful, until she realizes what this agreement doesn’t specify. “Together in life or in the factories, without our memories?”

Hermes sighs. “That’s up to you.”

“How long do I have to reach him?”

“I wish I could say I knew.”

The rest of the walk is near-silent, save for the sorrowful howling of the wind. With every step, Eurydice finds the cold grows harsher. Once, she would’ve turned and fled. Now, it is almost a comfort. The lower the temperature drops, the closer she knows she is to finding him. 

...

Hermes doesn’t share Eurydice’s acquaintance with the cold. He ties a scarf up over his face, warding off the snow as best he can. He wonders what Eurydice will think to say, think to do, that he hadn’t tried. He can’t bring himself to warn her of what lies ahead. People, too many to count, frozen like statues. Already, he’d noticed them among the trees. Staring, blank and blind. 

Eurydice and Persephone have not yet observed them as he has. They remain blissfully unaware. He knows it is pointless, maybe even counterproductive, not to admonish them of what lies on the path before them. Still, he can’t bear to speak up. Maybe it will ease Eurydice’s path to go in unknowing, clueless as to what she will face, just as he had been. 

The cold had been a force of its own, Hermes remembers. His fingertips had stung first, until the ever-decreasing temperature had chilled them to numbness. His eyes had burned, pelted by snow. His breaths had slowed. The effort required to inhale at all was great, even for a god such as himself. The cold had seemed to work its way into his lungs, strangling him from the inside. 

If Eurydice marches to her demise, how much might she suffer before death gives her mercy? Her shaky gasp pulls him from his thoughts. Eurydice stands, frozen in terror, her hands over her mouth, before one of Orpheus’s victims. A young woman, no older than Eurydice herself. Hermes hadn’t even noticed the girl. “H-he did this?” she stammers.

“His song,” Hermes tells her, carefully.

“How many?” He sees the horror written across Eurydice’s face. 

“There will be more. Eurydice...”

“I’ll end up just like them, won’t I?” Her voice trembles, “I’ve only ever failed him. Again and again and again.”

“You haven’t,” he says, firmly. “You haven’t failed him.”

...

The rest of their journey is silent and surprisingly swift with a known route to follow. As she passes, Eurydice whispers words of what she hopes is comfort to the unmoving forms of those who had failed the very task she will now attempt. 

Perseus, she remembers. Orpheus had sang of his tale once as they’d sat beside a dwindling fire, not long before she’d accepted her ticket to the underground. Perhaps she’d seen him, the great slayer of gorgons, among the shades of Hadestown. Heroes were meant to go to Elysium, but such a paradise seemed only a distant rumor after her time in the underworld. 

She can’t help but hear his story echoing through her mind. His task was much the same as her own: bring an end to the suffering caused by another. And Medusa’s victims had met such similar fates. She knows Persephone will not admit it, nor will Hermes so much as entertain the idea, but her job is to make him stop by whatever means necessary. Stop him, or they both belong to Hades, the King of the Dead had said.

Hades himself had given her these clothes, extra winter coats and thick blankets. Immediately, she had assumed that he’d only shown kindness to manipulate her, not out of affection. She’d been proven right. Deep within her pockets, she’d discovered a thin blade, sheathed and sharpened. In disgust, she’d nearly thrown it from the train window, but the longer she walks, the more glad she is to hold it. 

Had Perseus felt remorse when he’d cut through Medusa’s neck? Eurydice doubts it. The gorgon had been a killer, murdered so many before she had met Perseus’s retaliation. Plus, the son of Zeus had never known his enemy for anything but cruelty. 

But Eurydice had known Orpheus for everything but wickedness. He was kind, true, ever-protective, even willing to risk himself to keep her safe. The workers had attacked him and she’d seen how he’d winced with every step as they’d walked homeward. All of that, to defend her, to protect her.

It was hard to believe that her Orpheus had become this monster, killing anyone who dared to approach him. Every note of his song sends a ripple of cold through her body. He had come so far from the man she’d loved. She wonders if she’ll be able to reach him at all. Some tiny part of her asks if it’s worth trying. Perhaps she’d find it easier to simply slay her Medusa, feel no regret. 

...

When they arrive in the clearing, she can hardly believe she had ever thought to hurt him. He’s slumped awkwardly against a tree, difficult to make out beyond the blizzard between them. His thin nightgown is stiff with frost and stained with dried blood, certainly his own. He shivers against the cold he creates and seems to be fighting their approach. When she steps forward, the wind blows harder, he sings louder, which only seems to further strain him. 

She looks to Hermes. “Keep yourself warm. Fight it, Eurydice,” he says, as if she doesn’t already know. 

She steps forwards, entering the circle of icy figures that surrounds him, frozen in shock. Many of them hold gifts. Golden chalices or strings of precious jewelry. Offerings. A last ditch attempt to save themselves. Their towns, their homes.

Deep in her pockets, her hand closes around the scrap of paper he’d given her. Their first meeting feels a million years away. Again, she moves towards him, turning her head down against the wind. She doesn’t waste her breath calling out to him, he can’t hear her. Here, she’s surrounded by his attackers, men and women armed with a variety of weapons. Their arrows are frozen pillars of ice, stopped mid-flight by Orpheus’s song. 

Holding her coat in front of her face, she watches him, shivering. He looks gaunt and miserable, tears freeze on his cheeks before they reach the ground. “Leave me alone,” he shrieks. 

For a second, he looks up. “Orpheus!” she shouts. Her cries fall on deaf ears. There’s no recognition in his cloudy eyes, only pain, only fear.

She stumbles closer. “Orpheus, listen to me!” she pleads, to no avail. The winds rip at her blankets. Her fingers and toes are numb in the cold. Her eyes sting and she forces herself to keep them open, focused on him.

She sings the notes to his old melody, as loudly as she can manage, her voice shaking a little as she shivers. He strums his guitar, blood dripping from his fingers, frostbitten and torn by his ceaseless notes. The storms seems to burst from his voice, pulling away her blankets. Eurydice tightens her grip on her coat.

Orpheus makes a noise of pain, a little choking sob, as if it hurts him to continue fueling his blizzard. He sings on. Eurydice feels the knife in her pocket. She’d never forgive herself if she were to hurt him. Through all of his icy winds and endless music, he is only her lover, frightened and defenseless and lonely. The wind itself pulls the blade out of her hands when she releases her grip, bringing her coat with it. She’s left shivering in only a thin shirt. 

He’s so close, just a few steps away. Eurydice continues to sing, the wind blowing harder and harder with every note she chokes out, nearly drowning out her quiet song. The air itself seems to pierce her lungs. She clutches her chest and treks onward. The blinding white of the snow begins to blur her vision until Orpheus is indistinguishable from the rest of the landscape. Her legs shake, threatening to buckle under her weight. 

“Orpheus...” she coughs out each syllable, struggling for breath. His song changes its tone. It isn’t melancholic any longer, but angry. Hateful. Eurydice shields her face against the pelting ice crystals, whipped against her by the ever-stronger gales. Darkness blurs the corners of her vision. She drops to her knees, gasping for breath. Her chest feels like it’s closing in on her, choking her. 

Eurydice pulls out her slip of newspaper, clutching it in her hands. Her life seems to slip away before her eyes, blurrier and darker as if she’s sinking into a deeper and deeper sea. She feels the bitter cold. Loss, as her scrap of paper is whisked out of her fingertips. The exhaustion hits her last. She longs to close her eyes. To disappear. 

Instead, she sings. Her voice is tiny and weak and her shallow breaths hardly draw enough oxygen to sustain her. She pushes herself forward, on her hands and knees. He’s so close. She reaches out. Her fingertips brush his nightgown and suddenly, the world shifts around her. She’s back on the road out of Hadestown, holding on to him for dear life. “Eurydice,” he breathes, finally meeting her eyes.

She feels the pull of the underworld, trying to drag her under. She holds him tighter. “No. I’m not going!” she screams, as if Hadestown itself can hear her. Orpheus inhales, a tiny gasp, and his eyes slip shut. 

...

Eurydice wakes, Orpheus in her arms. She breathes deeply, the air already beginning to warm. She hugs him, feeling her lover’s slow heartbeat against her chest. He groans. 

“Orpheus?” she chokes out, her voice hoarse.

He glances around him and she covers his eyes. But he sees. He remembers. His breaths quicken, his eyes well with tears. “I... I killed them,” he stutters.

She wipes the tears off his cheeks. His skin is so cold she draws her hands away. “Not you, lover,” she whispers, “You didn’t do this.” 

“Y-yes I did.” He tries to push her away, but his limbs feel heavy as lead. “I killed... how many?”

“Shhh...” She holds him closer.

“I deserve it,” he sobs, “Whatever punishment... the furies have for me. I deserve it.”

“No, you don’t, love,” she comforts him, swaying back and forth. “You didn’t mean to hurt anybody. You were only afraid. Hush... hush...” He falls silent, save for his shaky breaths. 

Hermes and Persephone arrive at Orpheus’s side a moment later. The Queen of the Underworld drapes a blanket over Eurydice’s shoulders. “You did well,” she whispers. 

Hermes bundles Orpheus in his own jacket. “I’m... sorry,” Orpheus stammers.

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“I... I should’ve told you. I stole your food without telling you and... and I ran away. Hermes, I’m so sorry. I-”

“No, you don’t need to be sorry,” Hermes assures him. “I never should have left you alone. Orpheus, I don’t blame you for any of this. It’s not your fault, it’s not anyone’s fault.” Orpheus nods, too tired to reply.

Hermes again notices the blood staining Orpheus’s clothing. He finds the poet’s previously injured leg has worsened in the cold. The gash where he’d been cut in the underworld is sticky with new blood. An array of scratches, some quite deep, run up his arms and torso, no doubt courtesy of his attackers on the surface.

But it’s the cold that Hermes fears most of all. Orpheus’s skin is so icy, Hermes is surprised he’s still conscious. His lips and his fingers are blue with frostbite. Hermes knows that he won’t last long in this weather. Even without his lament worsening the cold, the air is still freezing and the ground is still blanketed in snow.

“Hadestown,” he realizes aloud. “Warmth.”

“But Eurydice...” Orpheus mutters, hardly intelligible. 

“No, Hermes is right,” Persephone says. “No amount of surface fires will provide what Hadestown naturally has. The sooner we leave the better.”

“I can move faster alone,” Hermes tells her.

“Eurydice and I will be close behind,” she promises. “Tell my husband that he can enjoy the Styx if he dares to lay a finger on the boy.”


	6. It's True

As Hermes approaches the bar, he notices the air has already begun to warm. People trickle into the streets to witness the miracle they’d played no role in causing. How many of them had refused to help search for Orpheus? How many deaths could’ve been avoided if they’d found him sooner? How much of this had been his fault? As he’d run home, Hermes had seen so clearly every mistake he’d made. Every one of them could easily lead Orpheus to his death.

At a glance, the boy looks dead already. Orpheus’s faint heartbeat and shallow breaths remind Hermes that he still has a chance, albeit slim, to survive. He spares the bar no more than a second's glance, instead turning towards the train station. The cars are always pleasantly heated, another of Hades’s attempts to appease his wife. He lifts Orpheus inside and gently lays him across a booth.

Hermes finds a stack of blankets under a seat. He drapes them over Orpheus, bundling him up like a young child. He brushes the young man’s wet hair out of his eyes and takes a seat beside him. Orpheus tosses in his sleep, draws in a shaky breath.

Orpheus gasps and sits bolt upright. Hermes catches him before he falls back against the booth. “Orpheus?”

“We... we need to go,” Orpheus stammers. 

“We don’t need to go anywhere. Eurydice will be here soon.”

“I can’t let them hurt her,” he pleads. “The Furies will come for us.” 

“No, Orpheus, we’ll be fine.”

“Take me to Hades. Let him decide what will become of me. But if he lays so much as a finger upon Eurydice, I swear to the Styx-”

“Orpheus...” Hermes warns.

“I swear to the Styx I will end him.”

Hermes pulls him closer. “Hades has kindness in his heart. You’ll both be alright.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean-”

“Hush. I don’t want your apologies.” Hermes pops the cork out of a nearby bottle, its contents still steaming. “From the River Phlegethon. It’ll help.”

Orpheus takes a sip. He winces. “It’s hot.”

Hermes nods. “But it will help. Get some rest.” Hermes gently lays him back against the booth. 

...

The doors roll open and Persephone steps inside, half-carrying Eurydice. Almost immediately, the train begins to move, willed forwards by some unseen driver.

“Is he alright?” the young woman asks, her voice trembling. Persephone lowers her into a booth. 

Hermes hands her a stack of blankets. “Fine. He needs rest.” 

“What happens now?” she wonders. 

“You won’t be separated from Orpheus,” Hermes says. “You will be spared from the worst of your punishment.”

“How can you be certain? Orpheus...” she lowers her voice. “You saw the chaos he caused.”

Hermes nods. “My agreement with Lord Hades stands.”

“And what was that agreement, exactly?” Persephone inquires. “The terms. Specifics. I know my husband.”

“Eurydice was to stop the winter,” he explains. “She succeeded, which spares them from the worst possibilities. The Furies were... not satisfied, but Hades’s deal was final. I ensured Orpheus’s safety, as well as Eurydice’s. Your husband will decide his terms, but there will be a reward for Eurydice’s success. And like I said, the worst is ruled out.”

Persephone half-smiles. “You always were a good liar, Hermes.”

He glances at Orpheus. Afraid, Eurydice thinks, for her lover or of him? “Persephone?” He almost sounds offended. 

“Not a lie, I suppose, but certainly not the whole truth,” Persephone corrects herself. “My husband did not let you off so easily. What did you sacrifice? What did you sign away?”

“Nothing,” he snaps, anger flaring in his eyes.

“Hermes... After all these centuries, I’d have hoped you would have more trust in me.”

“Seph...”

“Give me the truth.” Her voice is firm.

“That’s the trade, I suppose,” he mutters. “Your trust.” She narrows her eyes, says nothing. “Stop him. By whatever means necessary. That was the deal.”

“If I failed...” Eurydice begins.

“You wouldn’t have gotten the chance,” Hermes tells her. 

“The knife.” She reaches into her pocket and draws out the blade she had so desperately tried to rid herself of. It had returned. It had always returned to her pocket. She examines it now, up and down. Two metal snakes weave their way up the hilt. “Take it,” she growls.

He does. In his hands, the blade transforms into a staff, wrapped up with the very same serpents. “This was my only choice.”

“A 50/50 shot to kill Orpheus?” 

“The alternative...”

“What the hell did you agree to?” Eurydice snarls.

He looks away. “The knife. You wouldn’t have been given a choice. You... still belong to Hades. He would have guided your hand and Orpheus...” his voice trails off.

She smiles, as if admiring his madness and she laughs, soon cut off by sobs. Hermes seems to consider giving her some gentle touch of comfort, but Persephone is at her side first, shooting him a sharp glare. “You...” Eurydice wipes her eyes. “You would’ve watched me murder him.”

“Would you have preferred the furies?” he asks, not rhetorically, Eurydice realizes. She remembers the screams of disloyal workers. Thieves who had stolen from the work lines. Shades who had dishonorably killed men in life. 

“Yes.” Her answer is almost a gasp. Would she really prefer his pain over... What? Her guilt? She knows it is selfish, but to kill him would have been torturous. No amount of Lethe water could wash away ingrained horrors. And oh, how desperately she would have tried to forget.

The rest of the train ride is silent. Hermes sits as far from Eurydice as he can get, never taking his eyes off of Orpheus. Persephone speaks under her breath, as if preparing an argument. Eurydice stays at her lover’s side, half wishing he would wake. 

She remembers what she had seen in the woods. The road to Hadestown. But the underworld hadn’t taken her. She had woken, Orpheus in her arms. He’d been so cold. So helpless. He hardly looks any better now. His wounds had been bandaged, but he would bear scars. The madness of his attackers would survive by him. 

...

The train lurches to a halt. If Orpheus notices, he makes no motion to show it, still deeply asleep. Between Persephone and Eurydice, he’s easily carried. Orpheus had never been heavy. Always slender, light as a feather. His time in the woods hadn’t done him any favors. 

Hades meets them at the station. “Persephone.” 

“Husband.”

“Once again,” he remarks, “mortals prove themselves more capable than one might expect. Take the boy to my office.”

Persephone scoffs. “What now?”

“It is warm, Seph,” Hermes says.

She whirls, dropping Orpheus into Eurydice’s arms. She catches him with a grunt. “And who asked you?” Persephone snaps.

“He is my son. I haven’t forgotten my love-”

“Love?” she mocks. “You would have let him die. Not a word to me. Not a word to the girl who would’ve killed him, against her will.”

“He lives,” Hermes reminds her.

“For how long?” Eurydice asks under her breath, quiet enough that the others don’t hear her. Orpheus looks terrible. His hair is matted and his skin is still cold to the touch. She’s reminded, painfully, of her journey back to Hadestown after he had turned. She feels him slipping, just as she had. She speaks up now, louder this time. “Something’s wrong.” 

Hermes checks Orpheus’s pulse and presses a hand against his forehead. “He’s too cold. Listen to Lord Hades. I know it seems... well...” He lowers his voice. “Eurydice, he’s your shot at a future. Both of you. Even if Orpheus doesn’t survive.”

She flinches at the proposition, but rises to her feet, aided by Hermes, who takes the burden of Orpheus’s weight. Persephone rolls her eyes, but Eurydice waves her away. “The office,” she agrees.

Hades guides them down the thin streets of Hadestown, beneath high rises, where thousands of souls reside, and finally to his own office building. The first twenty-five floors, Persephone had explained once, over a bottle of wine, make up his bedroom. And the other seventy-five are his office and personal library. Eurydice had assumed it was a joke. But now the building stretches up before her and she’s sure there must be more than a hundred floors.

Persephone pulls open the doors. “Welcome to the castle,” she says, sarcastically. Hades steps inside, letting his hand brush against his wife’s as he moves past her. Persephone guides them to a lounge room where Hermes lays Orpheus across the over-sized couch. Eurydice strikes a match and the fireplace instantly roars with flames.

Hades takes a seat in the stiffest chair in the room. Persephone drags her cushy armchair beside his nearly solid seat and sinks into it. “A deal,” Hades begins.

Persephone groans loudly. “You’d think the God of the Dead would have a little more empathy,” she emphasizes the word, “for the sick and dying.” 

Hermes just about collapses into his chair, across the room from the others. An argument, he remembers. He needs to pose some argument. The room is spinning. He blinks, trying to force the spots out of his vision. He’d felt like this since his first venture into the woods. He’d considered mentioning it, but he’d never found the chance. 

“And I don’t just mean Orpheus,” Persephone adds. “Hermes?” He glances up at her. 

“I’m sorry,” he mutters.

“Go find yourself a blanket,” she tells him. He doesn’t move. If he stands, he’s pretty sure he’ll pass out. 

“Can we just... get on with it?”

“You want a drink?” He shakes his head slightly. He hadn’t eaten or drunk much at all since Orpheus had disappeared. It made it easier, somehow, to know exactly how his son felt. To know he wasn't wasting time when he could be planning or searching. Still, it was starting to wear on him. Hunger, thirst, his lack of sleep... but a god should be able to bear it, and so he does.

“I will not waste time,” Hades continues. “It appears that our poet...” Hermes almost smiles. When had Hades begun to consider Orpheus anything more than ‘the boy’? A phrase he said as if the young man was a bag of dirt. The King of the Underworld continues: “May not have long to live.”

Eurydice squeezes her lover’s hand. Hermes hadn’t dared approach them once he’d set Orpheus down, but even from across the room, he sees how shallow Orpheus’s breaths have become. 

“If he dies, he is mine. No amount of willing otherwise will change that fact, so we must come to an agreement before he does,” Hades says, matter-of-fact. “Eurydice,” he flicks the young woman a coin. “He may need it. Bodies fade far faster the nearer they are to the Styx. You won’t have time for a funeral rite.”

She nods numbly and slips the coin into Orpheus’s hand. “Now, our deal,” Hades goes on, “Your achievements are admirable, Eurydice. As are your lover’s. I will not keep you apart from him. Still, he cannot simply go free. Orpheus killed at least a few dozen mortals by his own hand and many more by the power of his storm.”

Hermes tries to say something, but he finds no sound comes out of his mouth. Persephone fills in. “Hades... he’s a boy. A boy grieving.”

The King of the Dead nods. “I have no desire to punish him. To the dismay of The Furies, that is. However, I must keep an eye on him. This will ensure his safety as well, for our relatives on Olympus may not find him here.”

“Their terms then?” Persephone says, bluntly. 

Hades sighs. “Nothing harsh. He has suffered the loss of his lover twice over and he will contend with the horrors he saw for the rest of his days.” Eurydice strokes Orpheus’s tear-stained cheek. 

Hades continues: “The underworld is overpopulated. I had not planned for so many new shades. I have no housing or work for them, so they will be sent to the surface to live out their lives as they deserve. Hermes, you will guide their souls to the overworld. Slowly. Do not disrupt the flow of Hadestown.”

Eurydice smiles, solemnly. Her lover will appreciate that, she knows.

“As for the both of you, Orpheus will remain underground for the time being, as will you, Eurydice. Do not think of this as cruelty,” he quickly adds. “You will be safe and provided for. Your stay will not be forever.”

“How long is ‘not forever?’" Eurydice asks carefully.

“For now, let us say ten years. You signed a contract, Eurydice, so you are legally mine,” he reminds her. “Orpheus did not. One of you is bound to this realm, the other is not. Thus, once I deem Orpheus ready to leave or our ten years is up, you will together spend six months on the surface and six months underground. Half the year for your death, half the year for his life.”

“That’s all?” Persephone asks.

Hades groans. “Don’t sound so surprised, my love.”

“Do we have a deal?” he asks Eurydice.

"And if he dies?” she mumbles.

“The deal stands. He did not sign a contract, he is not bound to this realm.”

“Then I accept your terms,” Eurydice says. “And in the name of Orpheus, I accept your terms in his place.”


	7. Epilogue

“I’m not ready for this,” Orpheus whispers. 

Eurydice rocks him back and forth. “You’ll be okay.”

He shakes his head. “This is my punishment, isn’t it?”

“Hush. No, it’s a practicality.”

“I’ll see them again. All the people I...” His voice breaks off with a sob. 

“I’ll be right there. Plus, it’ll be good to get some fresh air,” she changes the topic, “Does it wear on you? The underworld air? I worry sometimes, Orpheus...”

“I wear a mask,” he protests, wiping his eyes. “It filters out the smog.”

She sighs. “Your voice shouldn’t have to take so much strain.”

“Shouldn’t you wear one too?” he inquires. “You aren’t really dead.”

“I’m not really alive either. You are.”

He laughs, more of an quick exhale. “I came close to changing that.”

“You pulled through,” she reminds him. 

It had been torturous, watching him struggle to survive. But she hadn’t dared to let him die. He would have been alone, on the other side of the Styx. Sure, it would’ve been just minutes before he was ferried across. She had never let the coin Hades had given her leave his person, so he would have payed his fare with ease. Still, she hated to think of his terror when he found himself all alone, a shade on the banks of the dismal river.

“Only just,” he says, “And mostly thanks to you and Hermes.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit.”

“I was asleep! I didn’t help much,” he jokes. After a moment’s pause, Orpheus sighs. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d rather file death certificates than visit the surface.”

“By file death certificates, do you mean doodle in the margins?” she teases, attempting to lighten the mood. Orpheus had never been very efficient at filing paperwork. Still, they’d needed the money and though he wouldn’t admit it, he wasn’t strong enough to work in the factories. Even now, she doesn’t think he’d last very long. He tires easily even on their short walks through the streets of Hadestown. Filing paperwork for Hades had certainly been easier on him. Still, Orpheus wasn’t particularly cut out for office jobs.

“Oh, hush,” he laughs. “I wasn’t doodling. I was writing music!”

Eurydice smiles. “In the margins of important paperwork.”

He opens his mouth to reply. Then he closes it. “Fair.”

Eurydice drapes her arms over his shoulders. “You’re gonna be alright, lover. I’ll be there, Persephone will be there. Hermes too.” Without thinking, she says the final name with a slightly harsher tone than the first two. 

Orpheus picks up on it. “Eurydice, he saved my life.”

She narrows her eyes. “By nearly ending it?”

He sighs. “Can we not do this right now? Please?” His eyes are still puffy from crying. 

Eurydice nods and presses her head against his chest. “I’m sorry,” she mutters. 

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” she says. “I’m sorry, Orpheus. It’s just... hard to forget.”

“I’m not asking you to forget. But I forgave him and I’m the one who would’ve been on the receiving end of that knife.” 

She winces, hating to hear him speak of his near-death so casually. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Talk about his betrayal like someone stole your pocket change.”

“I’m not! If someone stole my pocket change I-” She glares at him. “Alright.” 

They sit in silence, leaned against each other for a moment before Eurydice speaks up. “We should be going.”

Orpheus nods. “How long’s the walk?”

“To the station, not too far,” she says. “I can help if you need,” she adds, realizing he’s afraid he won’t make the journey.

“Yeah,” he responds. His gaze is fixed over her shoulder.

“Hey, look at me.” He glances at her face and then back out the window beyond her. “Orpheus, it’s okay.”

“Please don’t say that.”

“I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true,” she promises.

He makes no reply, instead opting to push himself to his feet. He lifts his single bag of belongings over his shoulder and steps towards the door. Eurydice slings his guitar over her shoulder and takes his hand. Together, they begin to navigate the winding hallways and staircases of the residence that only fractionally belongs to them. 

They had chosen Hades’s great tower for a home mostly out of necessity. At first, Eurydice had picked it because Orpheus was too sick to be moved. When he was strong enough to sit on his own, she posed the option of moving away. It was Hades who had refused her offer. The remaining shades who had arrived in the underworld thanks to Orpheus’s song weren’t keen on seeing the poet in the streets. So they had only switched floors. The fifteenth story had been their home for the first year or so in the name of protecting Orpheus.

Once Hermes had returned the last few out-of-place shades to the surface, Hades himself had asked if they wished to find a place of their own. Orpheus had refused this time. He had taken up a job filing paperwork on the forty-fifth floor. He was too weak to walk much farther than the short distance between his bedroom and the elevator. Taking note of his troubles, Hades had allowed them to move to the floor where Orpheus worked, converting half of the storage corridors into a cramped but cozy home.

Orpheus had been more comfortable here, quite clearly. His walk to work had been shrunk to only a few steps, which prevented reoccurring incidences of Orpheus passing out on his way to the elevator, an event that had happened a few more times than Eurydice cared to admit. 

With his increased sense of security, Eurydice sometimes returned home to discover Orpheus strumming his guitar. He had been afraid to spare it so much as a glance when he had first come to his senses in Hadestown. Still, he hadn’t dared to sing. Just plucked out a few notes on his out-of-tune instrument. He had jumped back, almost dropped his guitar into the fireplace when he had first noticed her listening. 

“When does the train leave?” he mumbles, as they reach the end of the hallway.

“Whenever we get to the station. We have as much time as we need.”

Eurydice guides him down the hallway. They step inside the elevator. “How are you holding up?” she gently checks on him.

Orpheus shrugs. He leans against the wall.

“When was the last time you slept?”

“Why do you care?” he snaps. “Can’t we just go?”

She hides her concern at his sudden outburst and adjusts the bandanna over his face. “Because I love you.”

Orpheus takes her hands. “Do we have to do this?”

“It was part of the deal,” she reminds him.

“It was supposed to be ten years,” he retorts.

...

Eurydice leads him through the smoggy streets, a map in hand. She doesn’t trust herself to find her way to the station by memory, even without the Lethe in the way of her thoughts.

The longer they walk, the farther behind Orpheus falls. He’s been quiet the whole way, so she’s allowed him space to sulk. But now he’s almost a block behind her slowest pace, so she doubles back. He takes a step, as if to prove he’s well enough to walk and leans against the nearest wall.

“Orpheus?”

“I’m right behind you,” he mutters.

“Do you-”

“No,” he interrupts. “I’m fine.”

“I hate to say I don’t believe you,” she says. “Your leg?” He nods in defeat. “Okay. Sit down. Please, Orpheus, tell me when you’re hurting.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. 

Eurydice feels his tears soaking her shirt. The workers in the street glance at her. “Hey. Hey, it’s alright, Orpheus.” She strokes his hair as he sobs against her. “I’m right here. I always will be,” she promises. 

After a moment, Orpheus looks up, his eyes reddened with tears. “Eurydice...” She wipes his cheeks with her sleeve. “We should keep going.” His voice is small and strained. She hears the desperate fear in his tone and wonders if he’s right, if they ought to turn back. But this was the agreement and she fears betraying Hades’s contract more than anything else. 

“Let’s go,” she says, after allowing him a few minutes’ rest. “Can you stand?” He glances away, unwilling to meet her eyes. She reads him easily; the answer is clearly ‘no’. Eurydice lifts his arm over her shoulder and pulls him to his feet. “Try to step when I step,” she instructs him. 

He does try. Eurydice sees his effort in his every movement, but it is slow progress. His face is pale under the too-bright lights. He looks fragile down here, he always has. A single mortal in a kingdom built for dead men and gods. He is out of place, more so than even Lady Persephone. For the first time, Eurydice wonders if it would’ve been easier to just let him die. Is all of this worth avoiding those few seconds of hurt? A shade among the thousands...

Orpheus coughs and sinks more of his weight against her. He looks as frail and helpless, his arm draped over her shoulder for support. Finally, she spots the train station. Eurydice can make out the form of Persephone rapping her fingers against a bench, waiting impatiently. “Persephone!” she calls out. 

The Queen looks up, for a moment searching for the source of her name. She’s at their side an instant later. “Orpheus. Look at me, honey.” Persephone places a cool palm against his forehead. “I can carry him,” she says. Eurydice hands Orpheus to the goddess, who scoops him into her arms as if he weighs nothing. 

Eurydice follows her to the train, where Persephone helps Orpheus into a booth. Eurydice takes a seat beside him. He rests his head against her shoulder. “Get some rest,” she says. 

“Eurydice, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean... any of it.”

She presses a finger to his lips. “Shh. I know that, Orpheus. I’m right here.”

He’s half asleep when he speaks up again. “I wish we could go home,” he says

Eurydice is taken aback by his statement. She had never stopped considering the surface her home. When had he? “We...” Are. She wants to say it, but the words don’t come out. She pulls him tight into her arms.

...

The train pulls to a halt. Eurydice wakes Orpheus with a gentle shake. He blinks, tensing at the realization of his location. Eurydice forces a smile. “We’re... here,” she says, faking enthusiasm. 

The doors roll open, revealing Hermes, a light snow coating the train station behind him. Orpheus recoils at the cool breeze. Eurydice squeezes his hand, concerned. His eyes seem to beg her not to let go. She helps him to his feet, her fingers entwined around his and not relenting for a second. They step onto the platform, where Hermes pulls Orpheus into a tight embrace. He looks shocked for a moment, before he sinks into the god’s arms. Hermes whispers words of comfort to the young man. “I missed you,” he says.

“Ho- the bar?” Orpheus quickly corrects himself. Home is Hadestown. Home is his little nook behind the bookshelves where he tapes up music that he knows he’ll never sing. Home is not the bar he had run from. It has been six- nearing on seven- years now since he’d seen the establishment. 

Hermes nods. “If you’d like, we can go,” he says, finally releasing Orpheus from his embrace.

Eurydice takes Orpheus’s hand. As they walk, she can’t help but notice how much more alive he looks up here. The bags under his eyes haven’t gone away, nor has his heavy limp, but his eyes are brighter in the light of the sun. And the way he looks at her, as they stand before the bar. He’s smiling slightly. Nervous, but smiling. 

She remembers all at once that he belongs on the surface, where the light bathes his cheeks and his eyes sparkle with warmth. Eurydice realizes, too, that she isn’t holding his guitar. Instead, Orpheus clutches it tightly in his shaking hands. He catches her staring at him. He half-smiles, half appears to be on the verge of tears. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” he admits, as Hermes opens the door to his small bar. 

“Please don’t stop thinking it,” Eurydice whispers.

The crowded bar erupts into cheers when Persephone steps inside. “Look who’s late!” someone teases.

“I ain’t late!” Persephone retorts. “What is it? March...”

“Twenty-first,” Hermes informs her, tapping his watch. “A minute past midnight.”

“Oh, for the sake of the gods. Sixty seconds late and this is my greeting?” she jokes. “Next time, I’ll be sure to forget the wine.”

The crowd boos. Persephone flicks the cork out of a bottle with a wink. “Kidding.” She pours the first glass and swallows it with a single sip. 

As she passes around wine glasses, the bar patrons seem to notice Orpheus’s presence. Uneasy murmurs fill the room. Eurydice hurriedly guides her lover through the crowd to a relatively secluded table where she takes a seat across from him. She knows this place all too well. How many times had she sat at this very table, drinking glass after glass of unaffordable wine, praying that the alcohol would numb her to the cold? Today, she doesn’t accept even a single sip. Orpheus needs her.

“I missed this,” Orpheus tells her, after minutes of silence. “I know it isn’t the same, but it... it isn’t all that different either.”

Eurydice moves her chair to his side of the table. “We can pretend it hasn’t changed,” she says, softly.

He nods. They sit still for a while, watching the increasingly drunken celebrations. Persephone laughs and dances with mortals, many of whom are new faces. Eurydice remembers she and Orpheus had danced like that once. She turns to watch Orpheus instead. His jealousy is plainly written across his face as he gazes at the dancers. He glances at his leg. It had never fully healed, having become infected in the woods.

Eurydice grabs his hands and pulls him to his feet. Gods, she will not watch him endlessly pine after a dance. “I can’t,” he mumbles.

“Yes, you can!” she encourages, “We’ll go slow and we can stop if it hurts. Let’s try, at least.”

Reluctantly, he accepts her offer. She places her hands on his hips and sways back and forth. “You okay?” she asks, after a moment.

He nods, humming along with a few notes of Persephone’s song out of habit, before he catches himself and falls silent.

Persephone’s singing louder now, with a drunken lisp to her voice. She’s standing on a table, stomping out the beat, while Hermes looks on, pitying his furniture. She leaps off of her vantage point and into the crowd. The surrounding party goers catch her.

Orpheus laughs, to Eurydice’s surprise. Laughter had been a rarity between them for far too long. His eyes sparkle with genuine happiness. She can tell there’s no sadness in the way he smiles.

He dances with more vigor now, too, suddenly twirling her under his arms. She laughs, as he invites her to return the motion. His spin is awkward and clumsy, but perfect all the same. He bobs back and forth to the music, grinning all the while.

A woman appears at his side. Eurydice starts at the sight of her, but still she holds tight to Orpheus, praying he doesn’t notice his lover’s recognition of the girl he had encased in ice six years prior. Somehow, the woman smiles. She smiles at the man who once ended her life. “You know what I could do with right now? Some real music.” She gestures to Orpheus’s guitar.

He blinks in surprise. Before he can turn her down, the rest of the bar patrons are cheering their agreement. He sighs. “I’m out of practice,” he informs the woman. To Eurydice’s relief, he doesn’t seem to recognize her.

“Nonsense! Give us a song!”

“I...” He glances at Eurydice. She nods her hopeful encouragement. What she wouldn’t give to hear him sing again. How many times had she tried to convince him to do so down below?

“Please?” the woman begs.

He takes a deep breath. “I’ll try.”

A grin spreads across the girl’s face. She grabs his wrist and pulls him over to the bar counter, pushing past the chewing crowd. Eurydice hurries after him. “Up here!” she calls, leaping onto the countertop. Hermes cringes at the dirty boots on his hard-bought furniture.

Eurydice helps Orpheus up, watching him carefully all the while. He’s clearly anxious, but there’s a tiny glint of excitement in his eyes. She lifts him to his feet, standing beside him above the crowd.

Orpheus takes a deep breath. Last time he’d sung, he had delivered a ceaseless wintertime to the surface and underworld alike. He had frozen a year’s harvest and starved countless people. How many of his accidental victims are staring up at him now? Eurydice wonders.

Eurydice brushes her fingertips against his hand. “It’ll be alright,” she whispers.

Orpheus strums a chord on his guitar. The crowd cheers. Spurred on by their enthusiasm, he continues. The notes are simple, nothing like the complex harmonies he’d written up back home. Still, the onlookers clap and whistle their approval. It’s Eurydice he watches, though. She gazes at him, beaming with such pride that he can’t help but to go on.

He finds himself pleasantly absorbed in his own melody. The song seems to morph and change as he sings, from a simple celebration of spring to a story of his love. Soon, he finds himself singing the very same notes he had vowed never to hear again on the day he had fled. The song that had lost him his lover. Yet it feels so easy to sing... so natural that he can’t stop himself. The world seems to warm with each note.

Eurydice sways to the music, caught up in memories of their first meeting. Orpheus’s stupid grin. His paper flowers. That song. It had surprised her in its beauty when she had first heard it, but it shocks her more now. He’s singing! She had begun to lose hope that she’d ever hear him produce a note again.

The clock says he has been performing for almost ten minutes, though it feels over too quickly to Eurydice. With the last notes, he hands her a bouquet of carnations and the crowd erupts into applause. Orpheus is grinning, slightly out of breath when the song ends. Hermes helps him down from the counter. 

He offers Eurydice a hand as well. Hesitantly, she takes it. Six years and she’d never gotten a chance to ask him why. For all of his warnings, Hermes had fallen himself victim to one of Hades’s impossible contracts. Success or Orpheus’s death, and he’d signed his name. She clutches his hand tighter than she needs to. “Why?” she hisses, too quiet for Orpheus to hear as the crowd chants his name.

She doesn’t need to elaborate. His expression darkens. “I believed in you,” he tells her. 

“And if you were wrong to trust me?”

“Then you would have taken up permanent residence in Hadestown. Orpheus would not have been apart from you,” he explains. “That was the agreement.”

Eurydice exhales sharply. “Yes, he would have. The deal was that I wouldn’t be given a choice but to kill him, my hands willed to harm the love of my life. You,” she spits the word like a curse, raising her voice, “agreed to take everything away from me. He would never have chosen to live with the woman who murdered him.” The crowd is watching them now, a few dozen sets of eyes on Eurydice.

Orpheus takes her hand, in a weary attempt to pull her away. Without words, his expression alone pleads her to stop. “Let him answer,” she snaps. He tenses at the harshness in her voice and backs down. 

“I’m sorry.” It’s pathetic, Eurydice thinks, a god, whispering his apologies. 

“That’s it? ‘I’m sorry?’ And what would you say if I had killed him, at Hades’s will? ‘Deepest condolences?’”

Orpheus takes a step towards Hermes. “I forgive you,” he says, genuinely. “Besides...” He sighs, slinging his guitar over his shoulder. His expression changes to one of sadness once more. “If there’s anyone who owes an apology,” he addresses the crowd, “It’s me.”

Eurydice falls silent, taking a step back. She hadn’t meant to hurt him, but hadn’t she known that he would jump to his adoptive father’s defense, whether or not the god needed it? She feels guilt crash over her as he fiddles with the base of his guitar, his anxiety quite apparent. She wants to speak up, to tell him that he had caused none of this, but she cannot find the words. 

“I am sorry for the grief I caused you,” he continues, speaking with rehearsed eloquence. Still, she hears the trembling of his voice over his feigned confidence. “The sorrows I brought you are unforgivable and my wrongs cannot be righted. But I can at least provide you this.” He hands Hermes a bag of coins. “Drinks are on me this week.” 

The drunken crowd explodes into shouts and cheers of joy, as if they had forgotten Orpheus had ever wronged them. Hermes closes his hands around the bag. “This is too much coin. Enough for a month of wine for everyone in this bar, if not more,” he says.

Orpheus half-smiles. “You always complained this place was drafty.”

Hermes sighs. “I can’t accept this.”

“I’m not asking.” The poet tucks his hands behind his back so Hermes cannot return the gift.

“Where did you get this?”

Orpheus shrugs. “I’ve been filing paperwork for Hades. It’s a bit dull, but I don’t mind. It... it’s a good distraction.”

Hermes stares at him, dumbfounded. “Paperwork?”

Orpheus’s cheeks go pink. “Is it really that unbelievable?” he asks.

Eurydice answers. “Yes. I was under the impression that you were only touching up your skills at drawing portraits and writing music.” His face turns a deeper shade of red. 

“I was... distracted.” 

Eurydice realizes the implication and struggles to stifle a laugh. “By me?”

He bites his lip. “I...”

“There wasn’t much else to look at, I suppose,” she says, laughing, surprised by how easily his humored embarrassment cheers her up.

Orpheus takes her hands in his, his expression turning solemn once more. “Eurydice... I’ve found forgiveness,” he begins. “And I’ve forgiven.” For a moment, she almost grumbles her distaste, before she notices how clearly rehearsed he sounds. How many times has he repeated these lines to himself in preparation? Gods, had he been that afraid to approach her? 

Orpheus draws a shuddering breath. He fixes his eyes over her shoulder. “But I...” She can tell he breaks from whatever script he had planned to follow by the way his words quicken. “I can’t bear to see you two argue! I love you, Eurydice, but Hermes raised me. Why do you blame me for having allegiance to the man I call my father?”

She opens her mouth to reply, but once again finds herself unable to produce words. “Orpheus...” she finally manages. “I’m sorry.”

He gives his head a slight shake. “No, it’s alright. I would’ve said something sooner but wasn’t sure where to start.”

Where to start? How about the hundred times she had brought the topic up? All of which she feels desperately guilty for now. Before his fateful trip to Hadestown, he had never been shy to voice his discomfort when something unpleasant was brought up in conversation. During his years underground though, he’d become quieter. Eurydice had always known the guilt had worn on him, but she hadn’t fully realized how much her words had exacerbated his pain, partially because he was almost never willing to mention it.

She finds her eyes drawn to Hermes. She has avoided looking at him for years, always sharply reminded of her trials in the forest when she had accidentally spared him a glance. For the sake of Orpheus, she looks at him now. His eyes are duller than she remembers. He looks older, fatigued, even. She is sure that Orpheus had noticed all of this long ago and scolds herself for not doing the same. 

Eurydice had felt the effects of Orpheus’s lament, but not as Hermes had, she now realizes. She had been practically a shade when she had approached her lover, wailing his sorrows to the winds. But Hermes was alive. Immortal, maybe, but the power of the song had the most severe effect on the living, made clear by the fact that Eurydice, half dead, hadn’t been frozen solid in her approach. Hermes had suffered worse than she had, and she knows it. It’s visible in the lines on his face and the way his hair is parted to hide the scar he’d received when the winds had flung him backwards and slammed him into the ground with force enough to concuss a god. 

“I’m sorry.” Her voice is nothing more than a whisper. “I am so sorry.” Eurydice isn’t sure if she apologizes to Orpheus or Hermes. Maybe both. 

“I don’t know that I deserve your apologies,” Hermes says. 

“You risked everything for us.”

“And I’d risk it all again.” It is a completely truthful statement, Eurydice knows.

“Thank you,” she says. And she means it. 

...

For six years Orpheus had hoped she would see that Hermes had never intended to hurt them and finally, she had. He feels unburdened for the first time in what feels like an eternity. He’s crying, he realizes. Eurydice notices too. She breaks free from Hermes’s embrace and pulls Orpheus into her arms, swaying back and forth. “I love you,” he whispers. 

“I should’ve seen this sooner,” she says, ashamed.

In part, he wishes she had. All the while, he understands why she had avoided the possibility for so long. Hermes’s agreement had seemed ill-conceived, even to Orpheus, who had experienced the consequences of his stormy weather first hand. But the deal had been signed for a reason, a cause which lay more with Hades’s wants than any other consideration. Control was all the god cared for and no amount of quick words from Hermes could have talked him down. Orpheus’s father had accepted the least detrimental terms he had been offered.

“You saw it. That’s all that matters,” Orpheus tells his lover.

Hermes excuses himself to allow them to talk.

Instead, Orpheus finds himself following Eurydice as she guides him up the stairs. She pushes open the door at the top after a brief pause, revealing a room far more comfortable than the one he had left behind. The bed linens had been replaced. The nightstand, where he had found his guitar is barren, save for a vase, containing a single dried carnation. 

Eurydice pulls open the curtains, allowing moonlight to spill into the small bedroom. She takes a seat on the bed and beckons Orpheus to follow. He does, habitually drawing his guitar into his hands. Eurydice leans back in bed, propping her head against the pillows with a sigh. “I could... sing something,” Orpheus says. “If you’d like.”

She grins, throwing her arms around him and pulling him down with her until his head rests against her chest. “How could I refuse?” 

Orpheus listens to the faint but still steady beat of her heart. He plucks out a few notes on his guitar, drawing each one out, as if to imitate the murmuring from the bar below them. “La... la la la..” he half-hums, half-sings.

Eurydice sighs with relaxation. “La... la... la-la...” It’s the same tune he had sung in the bar. The carnation in the vase darkens in color, the brown tips of its petals change to a deep red, unfurling into a full blossom. 

Eurydice plucks the flower from its vase. “It seems you haven’t lost your touch,” she says, smiling. 

“Hm?” He takes the flower and twirls it between his fingers. “I’m out of practice.”

“It’s hardly noticeable.”

He continues to sing, the melody becoming more complex as he continues. He had memorized the way the notes had looked when he had written them out in Hadestown. For the most part, Orpheus had known how they would sound, though he had never planned to test them out loud. As he sings, he edits details, tests new lines. It’s easier with audible reference. What might have taken him days previously only takes minutes when he can hear what his notes sound like instead of only imagining them. 

He sings long into the night, watching as Eurydice’s eyelids grow heavier as his song lulls her to sleep. He listens to her soft breaths, feels the rise and fall of her chest beside him. The vase of flowers blooms fuller with each new line. His notes coax more buds to form. Deep red poppies and pearl white lilies. Carnations, both pale and rosy. 

The moonlight beams through the window, nearly sinking below the horizon by the time he finally closes his eyes. He sets his guitar beside the bed and hums the last few notes of his song. He feels warm air across his cheeks, creeping in through the rickety walls. Orpheus drifts off to sleep, in his own bed, in his own home, Eurydice resting at his side. Only now does he realize how much he has missed this.


End file.
